India forgets its milk revolution hero

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I had just entered my teenage years when I discovered the power of the idiot box. As we sat huddled before the eye-popping technology in a rectangular shape , my first memories are those of hearing a deep baritone voice, intellectually refined , possessing extraordinary depth and talking esoteric stuff. I did not understand much, but was hugely impressed by the missionary man. It was Verghese Kurien. When I last heard the Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi's government was working over-time to ensure that Kurien was forthwith denied some luxurious privileges; a cook, his car and a security guard. Modi's government, frequently lauded as a development model by cosmetic analysts , gullible scribes and super-sized CEOs , is obviously looking at cost-cutting in times of difficult financial crunch, I guess. Perhaps that explains the charitable excesses of lollipops sops and tax-breaks being provided to industrial houses , who....

I Screwed Up: 10 lessons in leadership

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I woke up this morning to the best quote, and the likely winner of the sound byte of the year 2009, which is still work in progress anyway. US President Barack Obama , not once, but several times confessed on national television that "I screwed up" , with reference to his nomination of Tom Daschle , Health Secretary who unfortunately ended up being a tax violator. Shoddy due diligence, but it happens. What was truly refreshing though , like driving down a deserted Marine Drive at 3 am in the morning, was his straight- from -the- heart brutal transparency. No bullshit! No justifications! No shrouded in calibrated jargon! I am sure the conservative Republicans must be crying foul at the usage of the slang term with a sexual connotation, but Obama was cool! I am surprised how the BJP has not threatened to snap diplomatic ties with the US for....